justinls

Nissan killed honda this year! What is acura honda going to do about the new 350zturbo an Gt-R skyline in a couple of years. Are we going to be known as the slow overpriced company?

hope not

FastNSX

"Killed" Honda how? What are the total YTD sales numbers for the two companies?

justinls

2002 north american car of the year was th altima
2003 MOTOR TREND car of the year g35 sedan and coupe

nissan is the only jap company that made third quarter profit

nsxtasy

Those awards don't mean a whole lot.

Not true.

Here's a quote from an article in Forbes magazine on November 14:

"In the auto world, there is only one way to make a lot of money: Keep your factories humming and sell everything you make, something at which Honda excels. According to the most recent Harbour Report on automotive manufacturing, Honda's North American plants ran at 100% of capacity last year, the highest in the industry. Toyota was second, at 96%, and Nissan was third, at 89%. Not surprisingly, Honda made more money per car than any other automaker, $1,661. That's nearly $400 more per car than Nissan Motor and $500 more than Toyota. GM was the only domestic producer to make money: just $337 per car. Ford Motor? It lost $1,913.

Last year was Honda's eighth consecutive record sales year. The Accord dethroned the Toyota Camry as the best-selling car in the U.S., and U.S. sales surged by 40,000 cars in an overall down year for the industry, sending its market share to an all-time high of 7%. In Japan, Honda surpassed Nissan as the number-two automaker and was the only major automaker to increase sales. Its subcompact Fit is on track to be the best-selling car in Japan this year. Honda's bottom line was appropriately fat: It earned $2.8 billion last year, more than four times the $601 million GM managed to turn out with three times Honda's sales.

Even after revising downward its sales and profit figures for this year in late October, Honda still expects to post another record at the end of its fiscal year in March. Profit is expected to grow 13% on the back of five new vehicles."

You can read the entire article here.

Right now, Honda is making a lot of money. And it has the best reputation in the business. The Odyssey minivan is considered the best in the industry, the MD-X is considered the best mid-size SUV in the industry, the Accord is considered the best family sedan in the industry, the Civic is considered the best subcompact in the industry, and most of their other cars (including the TL, CL, and S2000) are similar to their competitors but priced far, far less when you take into account all the features that are standard equipment on the Honda/Acura cars.

Nissan has only a couple of cars that are standouts (G35 and 350Z) and both share the same engine.

Ask anyone who is familiar with the auto business whether they'd rather be in charge of Honda or Nissan.

justinls

My freind owns 3 nissans (the family) and he loves putting honda/acuras down. I am glad that i finally talked to someone who knew what he was talking about

fastball

I test drove a G35 coupe, and mabe it's just me, but it was not very easy to get comfortable with. Sure it has lots of power and handles great, but I could not find all the controls easilly, the quality of the dashboard materials and switch gear is not at Acura 3.2 CL Type S standards (or for that matter Accord standards), and when I rolled the windows up and down, they didn't seal as tight as I would have expected. The new Altima has been consistantly criticised for it's poor interior quality in most car mags. So while Nissan has made their new cars with an aggressive design statement, the quality is suffering right now. Even the Maxima is down from the previous model.

Nelson

Quality of Nissan's aren't great, especially the interior, it's so CHEAP. Sitting in an Infinity, you keep realizing it's just a Nissan. But I have to say, Acura's have that "Luxury" feeling...

The new G35 is nice though...

TypeR240

I really like the new G35. But Im a Honda man, and belong to a Honda family. But I think as sports cars go, right now Honda is concentrating on a big gap between their luxury side and their sporting side:
The new Accord is being praised for its "Accordiness", which means ease of use, good at everything, but doesnt excel at anything in particular.
However, Car and Driver reported this month that Honda is worried that they're average age of buyers is shooting up, so oncoming is some little car from Europe called the Honda Fit geared towards the young. But also, this bodes well for the sporty side of Honda: A new NSX in 2004, an eventual replacement for the S2000 (rumored to be called S2200), and not to mention the RSX Type-R is coming soon.

This year just looks like it belongs to Nissan because they're reinventing themselves, and doing a decent job. As will be the case for Mazda. But no matter what other companies do, Honda keeps chugging along, developing AND selling good cars. But Honda will soon garner more attention again as the afore-mentioned cars and even the Acura TSX comes out.

NSXTC

Very well put. I agree 100%

FastNSX

Actually, I think Nissan/Infiniti is in last place among the big three Japanese manufacturers in the U.S. market. The last figures I saw had Toyota/Lexus in first, followed by Honda/Acura. So, if that's 'hitting hard' then they fight like a girl.